AATA Bumps Up Consultant Contract

At a special meeting held on July 16, 2012, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board voted to add $60,000 to the contract with Steer Davies Gleave, a consulting firm originally hired on April 21, 2010 to help develop a transportation master plan (TMP). The TMP is the basis for the AATA’s initiative possibly to convert the AATA to an Act 196 transit authority, with the intent to expand geographically the agency’s governance and service coverage area countywide. The consulting firm is assisting the AATA in that effort.

The original contract with Steer Davies Gleave was for $399,805. Over the last two years, the contract amount has been increased by board authorization on three occasions (on Nov. 18, 2010, July 19, 2011 and Feb. 16, 2012), which brought the total contract to $720,622. The July 16, 2012 authorization brought that total to $780,622.

Among other things, this most recent contract increase was to cover the following items: documentation of financial analysis; methodology for an equity analysis of the new service program; design and monitoring of the long-term countywide district-based community input; and administration of a community input planning tool. Of the additional amount in the contract, a portion will essentially be passed through to a local consultant, Carlisle Wortman Associates of Ann Arbor.

The previous increases to the contract covered an expanded public process, support to a financial task force, and the generation of a draft five-year service program. [.pdf of detail on Steer Davies Gleave]

This brief was filed from AATA headquarters at 2700 S. Industrial Highway, where the special board meeting was held. A more detailed report of the meeting will follow: [link]